Linda Perry came to fame as lead singer of the all-female band Four Non-Blondes. She went on to be a hugely successful songwriter and producer, writing hits for the likes of Pink and Christina Aguilera, and collaborating with Dolly Parton. She's now released her first solo album for 27 years - Let It Die Here - and a documentary film of the same name. Linda came to perform for Front Row and explain why she’d stepped back into the limelight.

Mel Brooks is the filmmaker who gave us such comedies as Blazing Saddles and The Producers. He turns 100 on Sunday so we're celebrating it with his son Max Brooks, and the writer and culture journalist Hadley Freeman.

James Burrows, who died at the weekend at the age of 85 directed more than a thousand episodes of many classic American sitcoms – such as Friends, Will and Grace and The Big Bang Theory. The writer and TV Critic Scott Bryan remembers James Burrow's life and career.

And Glenn Tillbrook from Squeeze tells us about The Everywhere At Once Festival, a special music event this weekend that’s celebrating grassroots venues around the UK.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Andrea Kidd

Writer Stephanie Merritt and Telegraph film critic Robbie Collin join Tom to review Anish Kapoor’s immersive exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in London, which includes huge red sculptures, black holes and boundless mirrors that challenge perspectives.

They also discuss The End Of Everything by M. John Harrison, a post-apocalyptic novel where the nature of the crisis remains unclear.

And they review Virginia Woolf’s Night and Day – a film adaptation of her novel with a cast including Haley Bennett, Timothy Spall, Jennifer Saunders and Lily Allen.

Plus, Toy Story 5 director Andrew Stanton talks about the latest film in the franchise, and as a co-writer for all the films in the series he talks about how they've changed over the years.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Claire Bartleet

Priya Parmar's novel The Original tells the story of how actor Katharine Hepburn set out to become one of the true movie icons of the 20th century and succeeded. She's joined to talk about Hepburn's life and career by film historian Pamela Hutchinson.

As the Obama Presidential Center opens later this week in Chicago, we hear how its architecture is being viewed in the city, how it compares with other presidential libraries and what it might do for the people of Chicago.

As the National Library of Scotland's new exhibition showcases how artists, filmmakers and poets across the centuries have been inspired by rain, poet Don Paterson and head of collections at the library Alison Stevenson join us to discuss why we're conditioned to think about rain in particular ways and about the best creative responses to a weather condition we know all too well.

Presenter: Kate Molleson Producer: Mark Crossan

The Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, is widely regarded as the man who helped the band break through. He's inspired plays, films, and even an artistic installation by the Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller. He's now the subject of a new biography, Mr Moonlight, by Philip Norman.

A Unesco-listed cathedral in Kyiv went up in flames on Sunday night after an intense Russian bombing attack. The Ukrainian government sees the attack on the historic Pechersk Lavra monastery complex as part of a sustained campaign to destroy the nation’s cultural landmarks and identity. And in Kharkiv, workers at the state art museum have just moved its collection after a bombing raid caused fires. The Baltic republic of Estonia, which has an Eastern border with Russia, say it is planning for such attacks too. Samira Ahmed talks to its culture minister, Merilin Piipuu.

Tributes have been pouring in for the Oscar-winning special effects pioneer Brian Johnson, who’s died at the age of 87. He worked on the British television shows Thunderbirds and Space:1999, the latter taking him to Hollywood, and The Empire Strikes Back. One of those who has been influenced by his craft is the visual effects designer and filmmaker Paul Franklin, who explains why Brian Johnson changed the sci-fi landscape.

What is it like to grow up in a town which lost its industry decades before you were even born? That’s the story of Effie o Blaenau, Effie in Blaenau, a Welsh language film about a young woman looking for love to escape her weekly routine of unemployment and drinking. Lead actor Leisa Gwenllian joins Samira in the Front Row studio to discuss her role.

When the Barbie film was released in 2023, it made over a billion dollars in just 17 days – making director Greta Gerwig the first ever woman to reach that milestone as a solo director. Now an exhibition charting the evolution of Barbie from her creation in 1959 to the present day is opening in Glasgow. It was first shown at London’s Design Museum, where it proved one of the venue’s most popular ever shows. Senior curator Danielle Thom and writer and fan Sara Sheridan discuss Barbie as art.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Andrea Kidd

Tom Sutcliffe presents a special edition of Front Row on the art of David Hockney.

The artists Maggi Hambling and Tacita Dean and Andrew Marr speak to Tom about Hockney's career and innovations.

Tom also speaks to art critic Rachel Campbell-Johnston and the art critic and author James Cahill, author of The Beverley Hills Housewife: Hockney’s Californian Muse and the World Beyond the Pool, published later this year.

The programme also features excerpts from interviews with Hockney.

Producer: Eliane Glaser

Film producer Jason Solomons and Guardian columnist Zoe Williams join Tom Sutcliffe to discuss Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day – a film which looks at whether aliens are really out there.

John D. MacDonald’s psychological thriller The Executioners has inspired two Cape Fear films and now there’s a 10-part TV series starring Amy Adams and Javier Bardem. Jason and Zoe give their verdicts.

They also talk about M. C. Escher’s major exhibition at Somerset House. Famous for drawing optical illusions, impossible buildings, and endless patterns, the Dutch artist’s work has inspired film scenes in Labyrinth and Christopher Nolan’s Inception.

Plus we will be revealing the winners of the Women’s Prize for Fiction and Non-Fiction.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Claire Bartleet

Scotland's Makar Peter Mackay on his poems honouring Scotland's football team as they head to the FIFA World Cup - one, his own work, the other curated from lines submitted by members of the public. Can they help propel the team to victory in their first tournament in many years?

Crime writer Denise Mina tells us about the extraordinary true crime case that inspired her book The Last Drop, now adapted into a theatre production at Glasgow's Citizens Theatre.

Outdoor theatre takes place across the summer, around the UK. But what are the challenges it presents, given our 'unpredictable' climate? Gordon Barr of Bard in the Botanics in Glasgow and James Pidgeon of Regent's Park Open Air Theatre in London discuss.

And as Pope Leo celebrates mass in architect Antoni Gaudi's unfinished masterpiece, the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, we speak to the author of a new biography of Gaudi, Peter Stanford about the building's cultural and religious significance, and turbulent history.

Presenter: Kate Molleson Producer: Mark Crossan

Barry Manilow on maintaining his musical curiosity as he releases his 33rd studio album, What A Time, and what it's like to have one of his biggest hits, Copacabana, sung by Sabrina Carpenter.

With the start of the World Cup this week, sports photographer Tom Jenkins, and Tim Marlow, Director of The Design Museum and one of the judges for this year's Football Art Prize at the Millennium Gallery in Sheffield, discuss the art of making art out football.

As the Rambert dance company turns 100, Amanda Britton, one of its former leading dancers and now Principal and Artistic Director of Rambert School, reflects on the company's distinctive approach to dance.

For 400 years the largest collection of notes - the Codex Atlanticus - by Renaissance polymath Leonardo da Vinci have remained divided with those deemed artistic kept in the UK in the Royal Collection, and those with a scientific focus retained in Italy. Leading authority on all matters Leonardo, Professor Martin Kemp on the new digital platform, the Leonardotheka, which has just reunited the notes and made them publicly accessible.

Presenter: Nick Ahad Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Samira Ahmed talks to Daft Punk's Thomas Bangalter about their new album Mirage

Ekow Eshun, writer and broadcaster, and Polly Savage, Lecturer in the Art History of Africa at SOAS, University of London, discuss an exhibition of Pan African art at the Barbican, Project a Black Planet

Front Row introduces its AHRC/BBC New Generation Thinker for 2026, Genevieve Robyn Arkle, who is a Lecturer in Music History at King's College London

And

Opera director David Pountney on John Tavener's last opera Krishna, performed as a world premiere at Grange Park Opera

Producer: Eliane Glaser

Tom Sutcliffe is joined by writer Alexander Larman and critic Arifa Akbar to discuss:

A new production of High Society, Cole Porter's musical showcase at London's Barbican, starring Call the Midwife's Helen George in the role of the amorously vexed Long Island socialite Tracy Lord who finds her heart pulled in every which direction. Also starring Freddie Fox and Felicity Kendal.

The film Savage House starring Richard E. Grant and Claire Foy, a dark satire telling a cautionary tale of greed and social climbing, set against the backdrop of 18th century England, a Pox outbreak and Jacobite Uprising.

And Fiona Mozley's new book about memory, Awake Awake, in which protagonist Mary is struggling to decipher whether her recollections are fact or fiction.

We also speak to the CEO of Arts Council England about their new direction.

As the Belfast Book Festival opens Kirsty Wark is joined by a range of guests at the Crescent Arts Centre.

She'll be discussing reading and freedom of expression with Hilary McCollum, whose new book As A Lover is inspired by the scandal which followed the publication of Radclyffe Hall's story of lesbian love The Well of Loneliness in 1928, and by novelist and short story writer Lucy Caldwell whose work often examines what were once taboo subjects.

Head of Cuba Pictures Dixie Linder, who's made TV adaptations of work by Marian Keyes, MIsha Glenny and Susanna Clarke talks about her approach to adapting much-loved books, and Andrew Reid of Northern Ireland Screen will explain how the Game of Thrones effect has made an enormous cultural and economic impact on the local industry.

The director and one of the cast of Bold Girls - Rona Munro's play about how women held families together during The Troubles - also join us live, as does Donegal-based poet Annemarie Ní Churreáin, who will be reading live from her latest collection Hymn To All the Restless Girls.

Producer: Mark Crossan